April 16, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



583 



present this subject to students, and, as a 

 teacher, is only the grandfather or great-grand- 

 father of the present generation, for James 

 Hall was his pupil, and it is well known how 

 many owe their training directly or indirectly 

 to him. It is probable that few of the Amer- 

 ican paleontologists, excepting those who have 

 graduated since 1900, received any formal in- 

 struction in paleontology, the general method 

 being to set before the pupil a tray of fossils 

 and the "Paleontology of New York," and 

 await the, sometimes tardy, results of seK- 

 development. This meant, of course, a very 

 long period of training, and the consequent 

 discouragement of many who might other- 

 wise have pursued the subject. This somewhat 

 haphazard method was due, I believe, largely 

 to the absence of any suitable text-book. These 

 remarks do not, of course, refer to the verte- 

 brate paleontologists who have in the main 

 been zoologists, and who trace a very different 

 and by no means parallel line of descent. 



English text-books have been available and 

 used to some extent. First Nicholson (1872, 

 then at Toronto), later Nicholson and Lydecker 

 (1889) were used, but these books were too 

 compendious for introductory work, and have 

 now long been out of date. Next came Wood's 

 excellent little book (1893), now in its fourth 

 edition, but this text covered only invertebrate 

 paleontology and is much better adapted for 

 the use of students in England than those in 

 America. Finally came the English revision 

 of Zittel's text-book (1900, 2d ed., 1913), which, 

 though really a reference book, has been the 

 background of the modern teaching of the 

 subject in America. This book, valuable as it 

 is, can not be placed in the hands of beginners, 

 and all teachers will welcome the appearance 

 of the present volume, a book which has been 

 definitely planned to meet the needs of the 

 novice, and which covers, in an elementary 

 way, all branches of the subject. 



The introduction of 28 pages is devoted 

 largely to an excellent discussion of fossils and 

 states of preservation. Personally, the re- 

 viewer regrets the appearance of the words 

 fossilization and fossilized in this chapter. 

 While these terms may be logically defined, 

 they are seldom logically used, and, once set 



before a student, no amount of warning will 

 prevent his use of them in a sense implying 

 some alteration of the original substance. 



Pages 29 to 82 contain a brief presentation 

 of some of the more important facts concern- 

 ing fossil plants. It would manifestly be im- 

 possible to write, in 55 pages, an introduction 

 to the study of paleobotany, but the author has 

 made a wise choice of the points of more gen- 

 eral interest and includes as much as it is pos- 

 sible to use in an ordinary introductory course 



The Invertebrata occupy pages 83 to 320. In 

 this part of the book the author foUows uni- 

 formly the plan of presenting first a somewhat 

 complete description of a typical, if possible, 

 modern, example of each important group, de- 

 scribing the morphology, physiology, and to 

 some extent the habits of the particular ani- 

 mal discussed. Thus, under the protozoa, 

 Amosba proteus is described as a type of the 

 phylum, while at the other end of the section, 

 in the phylum Arthropoda, Oamharus is de- 

 scribed as a type of the class Crustacea, and 

 Triarihrus as a type of the subclass Trilobita. 

 Following the description of the type comes a 

 general discussion of the group, relating par- 

 ticularly to those members found as fossils, 

 and finally a brief description of some of the 

 more important genera. Some paleontologists 

 will doubtless criticize the amount of space 

 devoted to the morphology and particularly 

 the physiology of modern forms, but those of 

 us who have to teach know that students 

 rarely come to us with the kind of zoological 

 training which would best fit them to take up 

 paleontology, and to have in one book the 

 zoology and paleontology will be of the utmost 

 use to us. 



Pages 321 to 402 contain the description of 

 the Chordata, the cat being taken as a type of 

 the Vertebrata. This part of the book is neces- 

 sarily, from its briefness, somewhat less tech- 

 nical than the preceding part, but gives a 

 good resume of the important structural fea- 

 tures of the various groups of vertebrates, and 

 of the phylogenies of several families. It is 

 usually found that this part of the subject is 

 of much greater interest to the student and 

 general public than any other part, and it is 



